i'm huge!

that's right, atticus here. the hugest van voorst.

i am fourteen months old now, and here are my player's stats:

..20 pounds.
..11 teeth.
..1 nap a day.
..about billion ways to get you into a triangle hold.

my likes:

..cuddling with kaiden.
..fast food.
..making funny faces.
..playing in the trash and with the drapes when mommy isn't looking.
..my aunt lauren.
..having my pitties tickled.
..when daddy comes home.
..whole wheat bread and fruit.
..putting you in a triangle hold.
..walking down the hall without holding mommy's hand.
..waking up at 6 am instead of 8.
..my veggietales CDs.
..my new sister penelope. i know how to point to her in mommy's belly...and on mommy's face...and on mommy's arm.
..anything with wheels, whether it's something to play with or something to watch.
..beatboxing.
..wrestling.
..playing peek-a-boo.
..saying "MAAAAAAAMAAAAAAAAAAA!" when i want dinner rightnow.


my dislikes:

..getting caught playing in the trash or with the drapes.
..cold food.
..tacos.
..cold weather.
..when people leave my house. it's a very sad time for me.
..when i'm not allowed to pull everything out of the closet.

all my van voorsts: episode 2

breakfast at our hotel...

...welcome to the second installment of the van voorst flurry of weekend fun.

after the army surplus store on saturday, we went to an antiques store (where i got a vintage suitcase, a sweet old tablecloth, and a photo) then ate at hu hot.

we then headed to watch some buccaneers hockey. um, i can't even describe how awesome it was. the buccaneers played the only team in their conference that has a worse record than they do. i sat next to an eight-year-old girl wearing a t-shirt that read "love is for suckers" and what i can only describe as fingerless arm socks. throughout the game she and her brother had a heyday yelling out indiscriminate encouragements and insults, including "GUARD IT WITH YOUR LIFE, MAN," "REF, YOU STINK" (which they yelled, on average, about once every 20 seconds) and, my personal favorite, "DOUGHNUTS!"

i also found myself sitting in front of a guy who smelled like weed... and beer-belched in my hair... and spent most of the second period being yelled at by his girlfriend for hanging up on her mom last time her mom called him. (i may not know much, but i can venture a guess that this guy is not what would widely be considered "marriage material.")

also. hockey players smell really bad. as in, so bad that you can smell them in the stands as they skate by. and also. there is a...person...who plays for the buccaneers... that i am fairly confident is a woman. but only fairly confident. whatever they are, i hope they find their tooth.

on sunday, we had a really low-key day. we got up, ate breakfast, hung around the hotel until check-out, then headed to jordan creek. i got to drool all over myself in pottery barn and williams sonoma...sigh. i seriously love all things domestic. after getting tired and sending myself into minor contractions from walking the mall, we decided to head to red robin to eat. yummy!

trying to finagle a way to end up living in the pottery barn store.

then we got to head home to see our sweet kiddo! it was so nice to get away for the weekend, and it's so nice to love coming home.

in honor of the dundies (because everything should be done in honor of the dundies), i would like to give an award for our best weekend highlight. and while i would love to be able to issue a highlight tie (a tie-light? a high-tie-t?) i don't feel that there is any integrity in that kind of passivity. so our winner for best highlight is.....

Noisy Warm Arms! while it was very close, i felt that she had a little sum'in sum'in that gave her a slight edge over Smelly Unisex. who knows? if SU had invested in a false tooth (ventured a denture?) the outcome might have been different.

visit des moines, we're des perate.

(the above slogan is what will make iowa famous, thanks to the onion radio news. click here.)

my most recent preggo photo

yikes, i realized it has been a LONG. TIME. since i've blogged. stuff has been crazycrazy around here! in fact it was so crazy that todd and i decided to take a little break/vacation. my parents came up for the weekend and stayed with atticus, and todd and i drove down to des moines to spend some one-on-one time relaxing and eating ourselves silly.

friday night we got dressed up and went to johnny's italian steakhouse. two words: zucchini fries. three more words: parmesan-crusted steak. holy moly.

before leaving for johnny's

after having just discussed the fact that neither of us had witnessed a real-life fight, we saw one. at johnny's expensive steakhouse. not at a bar. not at a hockey game. not at all what i thought it would be (considering that my main exposure to fights has been episodes of Lost - lots of blood and punches and dialogue about why exactly everyone's mad). in real-life, though, it was more of a grown-man bear hug with a lot of f-bombs thrown around by one of the hugging guys' girlfriends. i didn't realize that it wasn't someone having a heart attack until after the fight was over. not very hollywood.

after dinner we drove to our hotel...and drove...and drove a little more....further and further into what todd likes to call "the real des moines." finding ourselves in a very industrial (yet simultaneously residential...ahh, real des moines) area, i was getting a little nervous about the neighborhood our hotel was in. we finally got there (without being hijacked, i might add with a sigh of relief)...and todd pointed out that the big advertising sign above the building said "what up. low rates." um...

luckily, the hotel wasn't nearly as podunk on the inside (although the guy behind the desk's broken arm suggested that he had also found himself at johnny's recently) and it turned out to be really nice!

saturday we tried to go to the army surplus store to look for wool blankets, got lost, and found ourselves at gordman's. which, if you're looking for any kind of lingerie - animal prints, anything 44DD, men's thongs, lingerie for babies - gordman's on army post road is the place for you. while todd found no sparkly men's thongs that struck his fancy, we did have a good laugh over the cartoonish-ly sized ceiling fans and the fact that the entire "business casual" section was made by South Pole. classy.

after gordman's, we actually found the army surplus store. the second we walked in the door i realized that not all patrons of said establishment were looking for thrifty home decor, but most were in all likelihood preparing themselves for armageddon. then suddenly, to make a hair-triggered atmosphere thicker, there was a breach of security. a couple of russians came in, speaking really quickly, angrily, and urgently. now call me old-fashioned, but finding myself in a military surplus store...around a bunch of weapons...and in the company of what i could only assume were very intense pinkos...well, let's just say we booked it out of there with visions of fall-out shelter blueprints in our heads.

todd quickly trying on a gas mask before being seen by -
and offending - any fellow shoppers


...on the edge of your seat to find out whether we were blown to smithereens by an atomic bomb?! exhale and don't miss the next installment of 'all my van voorsts.' (btw, we weren't killed by an atom bomb...hence this blog.)

quick updates.

i am now 29 weeks pregnant. i gained 10 pounds in the last four weeks and am feeling really big and uncomfortable. so i think you should mention that to me the next time you see me. "hey, you're looking really big and uncomfortable, like you've gained maybe 10 pounds or so." i'd really appreciate it.

i went to a cardio dance class on monday with my friend marnie and about had a heart attack and went into labor. simultaneously.

atticus was teething and also did drop a nap. i'm LOVING having the whole morning with him! (and having such a long nap in the afternoon to relax and get stuff done.)

water fun day has lost its appeal. i got two good cleaning days out of it, then on the third atticus figured out how to dump the water all over the floor, then ran off with the spatula. any other ideas?

water fun!

i typically have a hard time finding a good opportunity to clean the bathroom attached to atticus' room - i don't like doing it while he's awake and having him around the cleaners, messing with the toilet brush, and playing in the toilet. but i can't do it while he's sleeping because the bathroom is directly off of his room (it's a master bed-bath setup).

in case you were thinking i just went ahead and let my kid play in the toilet (explaining how sopping wet he is in the picture above), get your mind out of the, well, toilet and let me tell you about WATER FUN DAY!

i just put a little bit of warm water (maybe an inch or so) in a tub with a tiny bit of dish soap for bubbles, gave him some kitchen utensils, put him in one of my old t-shirts and bought myself an entire half an hour of his fascination.

(just a note before the terrible mom society invites me to join, i did keep my eye on him, since kiddos can drown in as little as an inch of water.)

seriously, i think this is going to be a weekly activity and i'll be praying it doesn't lose its appeal.

i'm glad i'm not alone in this, but...

"today is spring cleaning day. yes, i know it’s january; i’m not an idiot. but if you do your spring cleaning in january, guess what you don’t have to do in the spring? anything."

– michael scott

one fish, two fish, red fish, sardines.

in preggo news, i'm still all about the benjamins.

and by benjamins, i mean seafood. as we speak (er, as i type) i am eating sardines covered in mustard on crackers. with sweet pickles on the side. (even though i'm craving fish, i'm not sure sardines are really up my alley. i mean, i knew that sardines were just tiny fish...but i didn't think through the fact that they still would have bones and skin...does no one remember the post where i was shocked to discover canned salmon? fish bones really gross me out.)

anyway, that somehow has not convinced me to stop eating them, although the mustard they came packed in just isn't mustardy-enough so i might have to bust out the french's (who am i kidding? the aldi brand mustard).

apparently all the omega-3 fatty acids have been going to the baby, though, because i have SERIOUS preggo brain. i found atticus' bib in the trash, discovered an empty toilet paper roll in the kitchen utensils drawer, and put my underwear on over my pajama shorts.

atticus makes me feel better about it, though, because he can now say MAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hooray!!!!!!!!

admission.

can i admit something? i haven't been okay lately.

i think it's just pregnancy- (and maybe weather-) related, but i have been struggling with depression, anxiety, migraines, insomnia. i feel lonely, stressed, isolated, exhausted and restless. i toggle between lethargy and running ragged. there are days that i drink cream soda for breakfast and make brownies for lunch because i want comfort food, but then i feel even worse throughout the day because i'm not taking care of myself. i'm exhausted at the end of the day, but anxiety keeps me awake for hours (or wakes me up once i'm asleep). i cry - or snap - at a moment's notice. i'm not okay.

for the last few weeks there have been more good days than bad days, but then a bad day will come and kick my butt. today has been one of those days.

i have realized through all this, though, that god is gracious and faithful and gives me what i need to get through my day. sometimes it's by supernaturally granting me patience when i have none left, and sometimes it's just by being someone to talk to in a voice other than my 'atticus' voice.

i have also realized that, in spite of how trying and inconvenient and downright horrible things might be (or seem to be), there is no doubt in my mind that motherhood is a high, high calling. this is all worth it - i never wonder. so many women have hesitancy regarding becoming a mom or committing themselves and their time fully to raising their kids...but it's so priceless in so many ways. and even when things are hard and at the end of the day you feel like you have nothing left to give, god so blesses mothers for being mothers! i have been just so reassured of this lately. so this has been a hard, good time.

any advice?

calling all mamas out there:

atticus has been teething the last week or so, and now has one molar partially through and one on its way. he really has been an awesome trooper, and other than the snot and drool all over his face, most of the time you can't even tell.

he also has been having some weird sleeping patterns. for the last few days, he won't sleep at all during one of his naps (it's not consistently one or the other, but he consistently doesn't sleep during one of them). he also wakes up at like 6:15 and messes around in his bed for like a half an hour. (when he's awake in his bed, he's not crying or in pain or anything, he's just awake and messing around.)

so my question is, would you treat this as just a side effect of teething or would you think that he's getting ready to drop down to one nap a day? should i try messing with his schedule or wait it out until he's done teething (which i've heard can take a looong time with molars)?

done and done.

spring cleaning is done! it only took barely over 3 days (a modern miracle), and that is even after taking into consideration that i had atticus the whole time! (i got in the car to take him to jamie's yesterday and...dead. battery.) so, my house is clean from the top of my cabinets to under my fridge. as i went along, i brainstormed some decorating ideas...and may i say i am VERY EXCITED?!?!

in the meantime, here's a little slideshow (a "vid," if you will) that i put together for my family for christmas. i thought i'd share it with yall since a) i like to think of you as family (aww, how sweet) and b) i am not skilled at ANYTHING techie, and i kind of want to show off my first attempt at using windows movie maker. so without further ado...